Skip a Beat
by Feniiku
Summary: [Fancharacter, minific] A simple day in the park with a CD player, a friend, and a helpful stranger.


**Skip a Beat**

_Author's Note:_ This is just me playing around with trying to see if I can write my fan-character looking at Shadow with a mild interest without seeming overly fan-girly. Think of it as experimentation. If you don't like reading about fan-characters, you don't have to read this.

Also, this is not how my character actually meets Shadow. This is just some random blurb idea that I had to get out of my head.

_Disclaimer:_ Shadow and Rouge are © SEGA/SonicTeam. Pewter is © Myself.

* * *

Skip a Beat

Water bubbled through the large fountain in the centre of the park, spraying up into the air from the middle and coming down in a dome shape, splashing into the pool below it.

Gravel crunched under the feet of passers by, most of whom were young couples enjoying a day out in the sunlight. Alta birds chirped in the tall, neatly cropped trees that lined the paths leading through the park, and occasionally flew down to pick up pieces of bread scattered aimlessly by a hedgehog sitting on a bench opposite the fountain.

The bench was a dark green, metal framework, with narrow, light coloured wooden planks providing the support for people to sit on it. It was new, and stood out when looked at. This seemed to have the bizarre effect of allowing the brightly coloured hedgehog to sit there un-noticed.

She was waiting for her friend to come back with the burgers she had gone to get, so amusing herself by throwing bits of an old sandwich that someone had left on the bench was something to pass the time. Each throw was timed to the beat of the music that played through her headphones, and the bread landed like additional percussion.

Her silver eyes were watching the water in the fountain, and she smiled politely at a bandicoot that came over to chat.

"Why hellooooo Pewter!" the marsupial was carrying her young child, and spoke with a high, nasal voice.

"Uh, hi Rikki." Pewter removed one of her headphones from her ear. "Taking the kid for a walk?"

"Why yes, I am. Isn't he so cute in the sunlight? I must say, I truly believe that he is the most beautiful baby in the world." Rikki nodded and smiled proudly.

"Oh yes, so adorable." the hedgehog replied in a monotonous voice, thinking completely the opposite about the child.

"One day my dear, you could come and do some babysitting for me?"

Pewter forced herself not to sigh in exasperation. She had no intention of willingly going anywhere near the irritation that was Rikki. "Uh, I'm not actually that good with children. It would probably be best that I didn't."

"Oh nonsense, little Bobby's a dear, he'd be so easy for you to look after."

"I'd rather not. I don't want to intrude on your _lovely_ relationship with him."

"It's no intrusion, and you'd really be helping me out" Rikki hadn't caught the thick sarcasm that Pewter had covered her sentence with.

"But-"

"Then it's settled, I'll see you Friday dear!"

"But, wait!"

The flame-coloured hedgehog's false smile dropped as the bandicoot carried on with her stroll, ignoring her protests. A small bluebird caught a particularly large lump of bread in the head, and chirped in alarm, scattering the rest of the Altas. Pewter rolled her eyes at the fleeing avians, and leaned back on the seat, putting her headphone back in.

"Bloody pain in the neck that woman."

A small breeze caught the long quills that stuck upwards and back from her head, and her fur rippled, making the fire pattern appear to move. The track changed to one she didn't particularly feel like listening to at the time, so she reached down to her left to press the 'next' button on the CD player. A spark flew from the device as her hand neared it, and a high pitched whine sounded through the earpieces.

Pewter hurriedly pulled the headphones from her ears and threw them at the malfunctioning music player. A look of annoyance was on her face, and her attention was directed completely at the device. She bashed furiously at the buttons, cursing in a rather un-ladylike manner. When a white gloved hand reached down over the back of the bench and picked up the player from her grasp, she blinked blankly at the spot where it had been, before turning her head to glare at the person who had moved it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"It's a simple problem."

Pewter stared at the stranger as he tinkered with the device. He was another hedgehog, ebony in colour, with deep crimson stripes running the length of his quills. His blood-red eyes cast across the CD player resting in his gloved hands, and a frown played across his face.

"Oi! Who said you can take my CD player away huh?" Pewter growled at him, only to obtain a brief glance from the dark hedgehog.

"I'm merely repairing it." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Or would you rather have a screech in your ears all the time?"

Without waiting for a response, he resumed turning the small key that he was using as a makeshift screwdriver. Before Pewter could work out another complaint, he passed it back and slipped the key into his glove.

"In future, try keeping that emerald of yours away from it." and without another word, he left.

Pewter stared after him, puzzled, and looked down at her own black gloves. "How did he know..." she gave a startled yell as a hand rested on her shoulder, and whirled around to glare at the white bat. "Flipping hell Rouge! Are you _trying _to give me a heart attack?!"

Rouge laughed and passed her friend one of the wrapped burgers out of the bag she was carrying, before sitting beside her and brushing her hair back. "I see you met Shadow."

"How long were you standing there?" Pewter glared.

"Ah, for a couple of minutes." Rouge laughed again, a sharp chime of a sound. "I also saw you watching his butt as he left."

"What?! I was in no way-"

"Liar"

"But-"

"Liiiiiaaaaaaaarrrrr." Rouge grinned widely "He fixed your CD huh?"

"Yeah. Though it would've been polite to ask me first."

"Ah, he rarely does that. Sneaky in the darkness type of guy." Rouge nodded, and pulled her own burger from the bag "Kinda quiet, but really sweet."

Pewter grumbled at Rouge's attitude, and commenced eating her own burger thoughtfully. When the bat glanced away to wave at someone, she stole a glimpse in the direction the black hedgehog had gone, and smirked momentarilly as the breeze shifted a few leaves from their branches and across the scenery ahead. She decided that they'd meet again, and when they did, she'd have to thank him for repairing her CD player.

_End_


End file.
